Bell Canada Appeals CRTC Usage Based Ruling…. WTF?

I don’t get it.

Bell Canada got exactly what it wanted when it comes to usage based billing, except for the fact that it will have to move all of their customers to the same scheme. That last point alone was enough for Bell Canada to appeal the decision:

In a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission dated May 25, the company said the requirement is unfair, because it shows favouritism to cable internet providers, who are under no similar obligations. Bell also said the CRTC has shown favouritism to cable companies on several occasions by more quickly processing their requests on issues such as wholesale rate changes.

“This … has the effect of skewing the market for these services by introducing uncertainty and delay into the approval process for the [Bell] services, while continuing to, in effect, rubber stamp rate and service proposals presented by the cable companies,” the letter said.

Bell said it intends to apply to the CRTC for a “review-and-vary,” or a request that the regulator re-examine and change its ruling, in the coming days.

But the CBC article points out the following:

The majority of Bell’s retail internet customers are already on usage-based plans, which the company implemented several years ago. Some customers, who are on “grandfathered” unlimited download plans, would need to be moved onto usage-based services.

The only thing that I can think of is that they’re afraid that their customers and maybe some wholesale DSL customers will go running to cable based Internet resold by companies like Teksavvy and 3Web if they take those grandfathered users and punt them to a usage based billing plan. If this is the case, then I guess that Bell Canada is living proof of the phrase “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”

This entry was posted on May 27, 2010 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, CRTC, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Bell Canada Appeals CRTC Usage Based Ruling…. WTF?”

bgw Says:
June 1, 2010 at 10:22 pm

I still don’t fully understand what Bell did to themselves. But the market reacted the way it should. I’m a TekSavvy customer and might move to cable if Bell takes away my cap or makes it more expensive to use TekSavvy’s DSL. TekSavvy saw an opportunity and took it!

Loading...

Reply

The IT Nerd